Saturday 7 August 2010

Embroidery grief

I hate it when this happens. It took over an hour to stitch out this tiger design and look how it came out of the machine!

tiger

The fabric between the stitching has gone all wrinkly :( It didn't look like this after it was stitched! Any suggestion on how to stop it happeneing again? I used one layer of cutaway stabiliser and had wash away on top of the fabric (which is bamboo lycra again). I only hooped the cutaway and spray basted the fabric and washaway on top. What can I do differently?

thanks!

A surprise in the post

I got a lovely, unexpected piece of mail last week. A familiar large white envelope came through the door with the words Ottobre printed along it. I was very excited, thinking it was the autumn/winter women's magazine though it did seem a little early for that. When I opened it, this is what I found.

freebie!

Ottobre had sent me the Women's Best Tops pattern collection as a thank you gift for recommending their magazine to a friend of mine :) Of course I had to try it out! A short sleeve, U-neck tshirt for me was the result. It's a smidge too small, I made a 42cm with bust gathers from the 44cm, I should really have made the 44cm instead but as I'm slowly losing weight I went for the smaller one instead. Odd how I make things bigger for the kids to grow into and smaller for me to shrink into! The pattern is great, the length was perfect for me and as a basic T it is very quick to sew up. I will be making a lot more, both long and short sleeves.

new top

The fabric is a gorgeously cool, soft bamboo lycra from The Fabric Fairy in a really nice grey lavender shade. I bought four yards of this fabric in various colours and have been stashing it for a while, waiting on a pattern I could use it with. It was great to sew and is just fabulous to wear. Really soft and cool while at the same time warm - makes no sense I know but that's the best way to describe it. I *love* it and I will be buying more yardage to make myself some cooler weather tops.

So, thank you Ottobre! And thank you GB for giving my name to them :)